"Cock"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Not to encourage you two, but CNN described self-disgraced Rep. Christopher
Lee (who sent a "flirty" picture of his shirtless self to some woman at
Craig's List), as a once "up and rising" young Republican.

I find 166,000 Raw Googlits for "an up and rising [X]," which strikes me as
a lot.

Are people becoming afraid to say "up and coming"? (Though it still gets 10
million hits.)

I ask because I was soberly told some years ago, in some perfectly innocent
context, not to "use that expression." Naturally I assumed that the woman
was a lunatic.

If the hero of the song had really just found the old maid's rooster, I
doubt that he'd put it together with his on the wedding night. Well, of
course, anything's possible, but this is an um-song, and the naughty
interpretation makes better sense. I'd be more dubious without the existence
of Doten's indubitable 1867 ex.

BTW, I lacked the wherewithal to consult all 79 volumes for HDAS
quotes. Take it away, Larry!

JL

On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 9:08 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Cock"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 8:36 PM -0500 2/10/11, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >[...]
> >
> >But then, the ordinary pornographer probably has no familiarity with
> >the very likely now-obsolete phrase, "come to climax" and its
> >mirror-image, "bring to climax." Or should that be, "take to
> >climax"?;-)
>
> cf. intrans. "come off", trans. "bring off".  But while "Robin
> brought Dana off" is perfectly acceptable (modulo the slight archaism
> Wilson notes), "Robin brought Dana" cannot be interpreted as the
> causative counterpart of "Dana came".  Funny language we've got here.
>
>
> LH
>
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